Once again, discussions on SG highlight the fact that people have different expectations when buying games. (Yes, I know, it's a startling observation. Bear with me, I'm trying to figure something out - basically thinking while writing).

One of the viewpoints that gets bandied around is that indie games aren't like other products. They're not published with the same intention as large-scale commercial products (i. e. to be addictive and easily consumed by the customer, and to make the publisher a lot of money). They're based on a different kind of relationship between the author/publisher and the customer.

It's in the nature of indie publishing, which is often about the individual auteur's vision of... design, publishing, the whole process, you name it... that the expected relationship will vary from publisher to publisher. Some want to just "fire and forget", as seen in the recent thread on promotion of Swedish games: I write it, I put it up on Lulu, I'm done. Others want to get feedback from their customers - they put up forums, sell ashcans, whatever. Some write little personal notes in the games they send out. Others don't really care who buys their game. Some design for their friends. Others design for the whole world. Etc.

Now, here's my point: To find out exactly what a given indie author/publisher/auteur intends with their product, you actually have to ask them. Most of them/us don't communicate the expected relationship - our personal "indie contract" - to the customer.

I buy game X, and the author happily answers my questions and wants to know how my game went. I buy game Y, and the author gets sort of cranky when I offer him feedback. I buy game Z, and the author mails me out of the blue. I buy game A, and it's semi-comprehensible, and the author says it's an art experiment and wonders why I tried to play it. I buy game B, and it's smooth and well-explained and playable right out of the box. I buy game C, and it's the best game ever if I play it the way the author intended, which requires that I google and read threads for an hour or two. (These are all real-life examples).

I'm coming to the realization that many members of the indie scene/community will do whatever they bloody well want - and nobody can stop them. However, it's not always fun to be an indie customer if you have no idea what to expect when buying a game. It doesn't exactly make our games and our scene accessible, friendly, welcoming. It's chaotic, unpredictable, weird. Is that good? Depends on who you ask.

What it boils down to is this: If you're not designing for everyone - for the People Out There who aren't on SG or The Forge or whatever - it might be a good idea to tell them that. "This game was written because my friends wanted to buy a printed copy, so I put it on Lulu". "This game was written to see if I was able to finish a game, and I was, hooray! Let me know if you're able to play it straight from the book." "This game was written for people who are into socket-wrenching breakfast narrativism, and if you don't know what that means, perhaps you shouldn't buy this game." "This game is part of an ongoing design project where I investigate the relationship between reader and text - expect the unexpected".

Matthijs, that's the best description of the community that I've ever seen. It is a whirlwind of madness. I don't actually think the in-crowd phenomenon is currently as strong as it once was, because we don't all know each other anymore. There are hundreds of designers and hundreds of games now and often times the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

I think L7 is right, and anyway, why did anyone ever think that indie games would do any better or even any different even from "commercial" games on this point of communicating what the expectations are? The original post sounds to me like it has identified the wrong mistake. "We thought it would be so different from commercial games, which are a giant jumble, but look, we have a giant jumble!" The solution to this dilemma is not to struggle and say "oh god how can I get all these cats to pull in the same direction and resolve the jumble", but to say "Christ, why did we ever think it would be different from commercial games?" and enjoy the crashing expectations, flailing uncertainty, angry flamewars and prolific fansites with bizarre hacks, just like the rest of RPGs.

Part of that is because of the "Buyer Beware" attitude I've developed towards indie games. I've become fatigued with buying half-baked rulesets that require me to research AP threads or contact the author directly for clarifications. Whereas before I wasn't as averse to giving something a spin and filling in the blanks.

This, it got discussed a lot last year, it's not exactly the issue here, but it's related. Where last year the issue was games that were half-baked, and no one could play, the answer this time seems to be that these gaps are "transparent", not missing rules, but things the author expects you to notice.

These days, I usually wait half a year before getting a game.

Posted By: MatthijsWhat it boils down to is this:If you're not designing for everyone- for the People Out There who aren't on SG or The Forge or whatever -it might be a good idea to tell them that.

That's what the introduction, back cover, and marketing is for. Also, nobody is designing for everyone, so everybody should make clear what their product is for before taking money for it. I don't understand why this isn't obvious.

Maybe I am an idiot. Can I get some examples of what is a good intro game (please do not just say PTA), and what is not?

I have a selection of games that I think would be great for intro-ing my trad experienced and non-rpg experienced friends to indie-games. but they are based on prep time and purely rules amounts. trad games have plenty of rules, typically more than the indie/small press games, so that is not (to me) and issue when considering what gateway games to use for trad games.

Posted By: khelekMaybe I am an idiot. Can I get some examples of what is a good intro game (please do not just say PTA), and what is not?

No, you can't get some examples of that, because there sort of isn't one - as you indicate with your rejection of PTA as such. This fact is the source of the frustration driving much of this season's kerfuffle.

Mainstream RPGs don't get crap for it because their community is old enough and large enough. That community is in fact the default context for the crap that so-called indie games get.

It's actually quite hard to make a game that's not playable in some way "out of the box", because every act of play is creative and individual to the player and the group and the moment, so in order to fail to be playable you not only have to have some devastating hole, but you have to block the creativity of the players, probably explicitly. I can't even think of a game that has ever done that.

JD,
Well, sure, if you throw in "in some way", you're right. I should have specified: "playable as the designer intended out of the box." Good call, that's a meaningful distinction.

I kinda think that "out of the box" is a completely useless and misleading term in the context of RPGs that should be taken out somewhere quiet and mercifully shot. I probably should have mentioned that first.

Playing as the designer intended is completely impossible in every way, for every game, forever, the end, but everyone needs a hobby and maybe it's rewarding to some people to chase that. I'm not ever going to run a marathon but it wouldn't kill me to get on the treadmill more often, would it?

(Edited to delete a post that just said what Matthijs said, but less eloquently.)

Posted By: khelekMaybe I am an idiot. Can I get some examples of what is a good intro game (please do not just say PTA), and what is not?

I think "With Great Power..." is a great introductory Story Games experience. The book is very explanatory with good examples of play (and even a comic book example of play!). Also, gamers often "get" comic book stories and tropes and this helps a lot in scene framing which can be a lot harder in PTA.

Posted By: Kevin Allen JrThis is a pretty weak, enabling statement.

So it is, yet it remains true and to the truth I must remain loyal, weak and enabling though I may be.

See, here's the thing about choice, to expand on what Brand is saying:

If you give me content, I can choose to ignore it, modify it, or gasp, even use it.
If you don't give me a content, I'll have to come up with something of my own.

Designers give us choices, they give us a framework, which we are free to ignore, sure. But if they won't give us the framework, then what are they there for?

I will preface this by saying that I'm not nearly as experienced as a lot of the people on this particular forum. However, I have noticed a defining theme about so-called "mainstream" games versus "indie games" (and many of you may disagree with me; this is merely my own observation through my own experience). In mainstream games, with mainstream gamers (if there are such a thing), I have noticed that the whole thing seems very achievement and possession-oriented. This was very true in the boffer LARPs I played in as well as the few times I played D n' D. And perhaps it was a greedy set of people, I don't know. On the other hand, with the indie games, the theme seems to be making the best story possible, which usually means periodically (or frequently) failing. And failing again. Failing or not getting what you want when you want it makes the game and thus the story more interesting. A classic example of this is Polaris, where your endgame is failure and death. It sounds like a bummer, but it can be very cool. Or like Fate, where you get more points for playing up your flaws. I haven't seen that dynamic as much in mainstream games.